Page 20 - Bulletin 9 2005

17

also because it shows the manner in which the Bato was being stripped. Once hulked, the
Bato was converted into a floating gun platform anchored in Simon’s Bay to guard the

approaches to the naval base there. On 9 January 1806, three days after the Battle of
Blaauwberg signalled the start of the Second British Occupation of the Cape, General

Jansens, the outgoing Dutch Governor, ordered that the Bato be burned and scuttled to

prevent her from falling into British hands. The orders were carried out and the vessel was
burned to the waterline. The platform, her guns and the few remaining objects on board

were wrecked in a few metres of water just off Long Beach, Simon’s Town.

It is likely that the wreck was quickly colonised by fish and kelp, and it eventually became
a popular dive site. Navy divers recovered some of the items that remained on board,

including the iron cannons that had been sacrificed with the ship (the cannons that were

mounted outside the old Simon’s Town Post Office may have been those recovered from
the Bato) and souvenir hunters picked up bottles and other objects from the wreck site. But

the remaining items had relatively little commercial value and the site was, for the most

part, left intact.

In 1996/7 a group of interested Hungarian divers, under the supervision of Dr Bruno Werz,
began excavating the wreck site. The growth and concretion that covered the site was

removed and the wreckage was mapped. As with the Brunswick, limited excavation
resulted in a few artefacts being recovered. The excavation revealed that, below the

waterline, the vessel had remained relatively intact. The copper sheathing that covered the

hull to protect it from invading marine fauna and flora was largely intact over parts of the
hull. The rudder pintles and gudgeons at the stern of the vessel were still present and a good

deal of structural information could be gathered.

A comparative study of the Brunswick and Bato seems an obvious route to take for future
research. Being contemporaries, the comparison may have much to offer. The ships were of

different nationalities and served different functions, one being a warship, the other an East